Wines of the World – A Sequel Challenge

Yesterday I posted about the challenge of trying the wines from all 50 states in US and visiting wineries in those 50 states. One of the comments had a suggestion – how about the wines of the world? Really, how about it?

It is not that simple even to create the list of wine-producing countries of the world. Considering that the wine is at its peak of popularity, many countries are entering the winemaking arena. Yes, of course, there is a core of the wine-producing countries – about ten or so – but based on the data in Wikipedia (which also differs between different articles), about 60 countries produce the wines in the world today, give or take a few.

I wanted to find a good map to illustrate the wineries concentration around the world, but that didn’t happen, so here is the map of the winemaking areas according to the Wikipedia article:

Source: Wikipedia

Now, how many of you tried the wine from Algeria or Thailand (well, I know that Oliver did)? I’m sure those are not easy to find in your local wine boutique. I would argue that the typical [good] wine store in US would have the wines from about 15 countries; some of the best stores will probably account for about 20 at a time. Thus if you really want to try the wines from many different countries, you will have to make an effort.

Is that a worthwhile effort? That is strictly a personal question. I’m genuinely curious how the different wines taste like, so I’m excited to try the wines pretty much from anywhere. Should you expect to find great wines? You definitely will – I had many mind-blowing wines from Serbia, Croatia, Lebanon, Israel, Georgia and other lesser known wine-making countries. Of course you will encounter a lot of plonk along the way, that is also given. So, should you take upon this challenge? I can’t answer that question – as I said, this is strictly driven by the personal interest, so you be the judge.

If you are curious where do you stand now, use this word document to track your progress. As a reference, I can tell you that at this point, I tasted wines from 36 different countries out of 58 listed in the document, and visited wineries in 6 (yeah, need to travel more…). What would be your score?

Below is the table showing my exact list of wines and wineries per country.Challenge yourself! Cheers!

Wow, love this. I am going to save it and work on it. I actually had wine from Malta, while I was there I never saw a winery or any vineyards I honestly thought it was probably bottled there and imported from Italy but I guess they do make it there. Great idea Anatoli and I am impressed that you have tasted wines from 36 countries. I really need to visit more wineries, I really want to do Long Island.